Mongolia
The Mongols '''have the power of the Horde. Game Info '''Faction Type: Asian Nation Bonuses: *Mounted units created 10% cheaper and 20% faster *Receive +1x (1/2 the number of nations in play) food for each 1% of world controlled *Your units suffer 50% less attrition damage *Forage line of research are free at Smelter *Receive free ranged cavalry whenever a new Stable is built 1 for each level of Miltary research up to 3 Unique Units: *Steppe Nomad 1 => Altan Ordu 2 *Tarkan 2 => Keshig Guard 3 *Suicide Soldier 1 => Conscript Swordsman 2 => Armored Militia 3 Mercenaries: *1 Varangian Guard *2 Armenian *3 Hashishin; Battle Wagon Suggestions and spoilers Mongol national bonuses make them ideally suited for the offensive minded player. By far, the traditional favorite units of rushers are ranged cavalry. Indeed this is where the Mongols shine, having their sole, but highly effective unique unit in this line. They receive them at the Dark Age which is very early in the game. This means that they can take advantage of these awesome troops before many people can mount an adequate defence. Mongol light cavalry and archers also suffer less from attrition which means they may be the only civilisation that is able to really make a successful rushing attack on the Russians (the Saracens and Moors have the same capabilities, though), to counter-act their extra attrition, and keep them in check so that they don't enter the late game unscathed. When facing a civilisation besides the Russians, these more resilient troops will certainly be even more effective in a rushing attack then other troops, being able to linger much longer without suffering attrition and thus deal out much more destruction and disruption to their enemies. The even better bonus is that they get up to three cavalry archers for free for every stable they build. This can be of great use to facilitate a rushing attack. Timber is generally not too difficult to accumulate, so use that wood up and plop down as many stables as you can and take advantage of those free troops. So plop down 4 or 5 stables and get yourself 12 to 15 cavalry archers as a bonus. This should be a very adequate rushing force. You can go with less but in Rise of Nations, you generally need a bigger rushing force for them to be as effective as in other real-time strategy games. If the Rush fails, it's still not a big loss since those troops are free anyway. They will at least have had their production disrupted, and lost a few units. They may even over compensate and try to build too many defenses and neglect their research and economic side. That is, being knocked off their game plan, which is really what one hopes to do in these kinds of attacks. Even better of course if you manage to cripple their economy or force them to resign. But remember it is all about cost versus benefit, you get troops that cost you nothing, so use them to cause people some damage, and you can't really lose. Of course it doesn't mean you should squander that bonus either, because you need to meet a certain minimum of force in order to deal adequate damage. You can of course try to bank the free troops till later in game, and use them as part of a combined arms force. However, one should be careful not to accumulate too many of them before the late ages: gunpowder factions are most adept at taking out ranged cavalry. However, if timed right, the resources you have saved from not having to pay for the cavalry archers can help you build a much bigger and formidable combined arms force where you can really deal some serious damage and bring victory home. The keshig guardsmen, being light cavalry with extra bite, should be able to serve in this role. The suicide soldier line, which is upgraded in the Castle Age to the conscript swordsman and finally becomes the Imperial Era armoured militiaman, is a "cheaper than cheap" unit with very poor attack, lower HP and almost no armour. It might then well be possible for Mongolia, with its food bonus, to create massive "human wave armies", but these troops without support are highly vulnerable to cavalry rushing and also do not move very fast. In multiplayer team games, the Mongol player would be instrumental in using its fast, effective and free cavalry archers to keep opponents from developing their economy as well as you and your allies. A good ally would ideally be a civilization that is strong in the late game and later ages. Since the Mongols are best in the earlier ages, and lack any special units for the later ages. However they will still be great for flanking attacks and against light infantry. These units will not be as effective in dealing with the generally more resilient troops and buildings of the later ages, especially when faced with gunpowder. Faction summary *Offensive, expansive faction focused on cavalry, raiding and expansion. *Hunny Money — Research Despotism, and then pair up your patriot with 10 or so Golden Horde archers and you can pick off enemy infantry and villagers for resources. In the case of Russia, destroy all Russian miners to interdict the creation of druzhinnik so that your rush will not be impeded by heavy cavalry. *Golden Hoard — Your Golden Horde archers can easily kill off all infantry units. China and Japan rely heavily on infantry armies. Especially conscript infantry, which are weaker than most light infantry. Perhaps you can use that fragility to improve your economy? *Wood, Could & Should — Ensure a steady supply of timber to create extra horse harcher-spawning stables and, in later ages, your hardened light cavalry units. A Mongol-HRE alliance is always good: the Mongol player can offer excess food in exchange for the HRE's timber to create their unique units. *Winter Generality — Mongol cavalry and Muslim infantry have the ability to endure attrition. Problem is, Mongol cavalry have good armour, while Muslims don't... *Manna From Heaven — With enough space, the Mongols can become quite an economic powerhouse: food can be translated into more villagers and cities that can power your expansion. Or more possibly, with wood, can be used to create keshigs — an extremely powerful medium-strength melee cavalry unit. *Trigger Happy — Timber might be in short supply by the time you hit the Imperial Era, so gunpowder units might be your Number One choice for artillery as opposed to traditional siege weapons...they may not shoot as normal wood-based units might, but they hit just as hard, and train much faster old-fashioned units do. *Forlorn Hope — While Mongolia does receive the best Dark Age mercenary unit, it is a terribly slow-moving heavy infantry unit with a high wealth pricetag to boot. You are better off training suicide soldiers instead, although the wealth saved from spawning cavalry archers theoretically might be used to recruit these toughened Northmen... '''Settlements: '''Khanbalit; Karakorum; Karamay; Urumqi; Altay; Turpan; Hami; Kazan; Aksu; Bole; Artux; Korla; Tumxuk; Aral; Ordos; Kara Khoto; Urgench; Yecheng; Sibir; Tana; Astrakhan; Bolgar; Khojend; Balkh; Otrar; Shash; Beshbalik; Lhasa; Balasaghun; Shengle; Alamut; Ngari; Nagqu; Qamdo; Xigaze; Nyingchi; Seoul; Pyongyang; Sariwon; Kaesong; Busan; Suwon; Chongjin '''Leaders: '''Temujin, Tuoba Chichi, Tokhtamysh, Kublai, Subotai, Ugedey, Hulagu, Edigu, Nurhaci, Murong Tuhuyun, Chagatai History Central Asia had long been the home of various nomadic tribes based on the practice of animal herding and horses. Humans had inhabited the region ever since the prehistoric period. The land lends itself to breed a people who were used to harsh living conditions, mobility and war — elements that make for an ideal military force. Ancient history In pre-Mongol times, various Turkic and Mongol-Tungusic tribes inhabited the steppes of Mongolia. These various ethnic groups alternatively ruled each other during this time, one group would gain power and subdue the others until another group formed to topple the previously superior power. One of the first politically organised groups were the Xiongnü (the Chinese name for a tribe called the Hunnu) had for a time been dominant in the region. They throughout this time, posed a constant threat to ancient China, and were the reason led China to build greater and greater walls and garrisons along its northern border, finally in the 15th century culminating in the Great Wall which stretched over 5,000 miles across its northern border. In fact, one of the splinter groups from this nation that had moved north and westward would eventually arrive at the gates of Roman Empire in the 4th century, to be known to the western world as the Huns, thus it is no coincidence that some of the most successful conquerors and invaders came from this region of the world. The Turkic tribes that instead migrated southwest towards the Middle East were for a long time held back by mountains and the Persian empires, settling in the region just outside of the Persian Empire known as Transoxania to establish the Göktürk Empire, which lasted lasted for two centuries until it feel apart by the 9th century. The empire was for a time even strong enough to exact tribute from the Chinese. However, the Chinese under the Sui dynasty would succeed in dividing the Göktürk into two parts, and manipulate them into fighting with each another. The Eastern Göktürk would even become subjugated by the Chinese under the Tang dynasty, being forced to become a tributary state, but they would eventually threw off Chinese domination and instead seized some of China's northern territories in 720. The two parts of the Göktürk Empire also briefly re-established friendly relations, before falling apart when rival princes vied for control. An alliance of rebel tribes led by the Uyghurs, took the opportunity to reassert their independence, destroying any hope of unity under Gokturk rule. The alliance itself broke apart after its work was done. The Uyghurs would be dominant in the region for the next three centuries. Origins of the Mongols Rise of the Mongols Around 1130, the Mongol came to fore. They would go on to defeat their neighboring tribesmen and even forced the Jin Empire (in Northern China) to pay them tribute. However, the first Mongol Kingdom was a short-lived one, lasting a mere 30 years before being defeated by the Tartars. Infighting prevented any reconsolidation of the tribes. One of the descendents of the khans (clan chiefs) of the former Kingdom was Yesugei. Yesugei was poisoned by Tartar chiefs and died, but not before leaving a son named Temujin. Being so young, Temujin was not old enough to take on the leadership of the clan and his clansmen abandoned the family. The young Temujin was left to be raised alone by his mother, and his immediate family. He had a harsh life growing up trying to eke out a living in the harsh Mongolian steppes, but he also had many harrowing adventures. When he was 16, his family was attacked by the Merkits (his mother was incidentally a Merkit) who kidnapped Temujin's wife. With help from others, Temujin continued to follow up this victory as impetus to take control all of the other Mongol clans. He began his return to power first with the defeat of the Tartars in 1196, then turning on to the Kereyids, his former ally in 1203, and then the rest of the steppe tribes the following year. With all the steppe tribes now under his control, Temujin held a great assembly on the banks of the Onon river in 1206, and took the title Genghis Khan. Genghis Khan possessed not only a keen sense of his own destiny, but had many qualities to back up his ambitions. He possessed strategic and tactical brilliance in warfare, political attuteness and superb organisational abilities. He also had a keen sense of the importance of trade, as it was often the only way to survive in the bleak steppe lands, especially being raised as he was when his family was abandoned by their clansmen. Sweeping reforms were instituted upon Mongol society, organising his army into easily managed units, each led by a commander elected by the men. Promotion was based on merit, and not by birthright, which was the custom in many cultures in the world at the time. The Mongol army was also comprised entirely of cavalry at this time, and thus was capable of sweeping manoeuvres. Most notable was the feigned retreat that would lure an opposing force into pursuit. The Mongol army would encircle the strung out army and pepper them with arrows, shot from composite bows that had a range of 350 yards, until the former pursuers were destroyed. The year after his ascension to leadership, Genghis Khan turned his attention on the riches of the "civilised" kingdoms to the south. First, he led his men against the Xixia Kingdom in northwest China. His main goal was to gain favorable trade terms with the Xixia, which had dominated trade along their section of the Silk Road. He quickly overwhelmed the Xixia who had no choice but to submit to his authority, so he offered them a tributary state relationship to the Mongols. He also adopted the Uighur language used by the Xixia as a written language for the Mongol nation, which had no written language before this time. Next was the kingdom of Jin in 1211. Their capital at Shangdu, in present-day Beijing, dominated northern China up to the Yangtze River. Shangdu fell after 4 years of siege in 1215, however by then the Jin had moved their political centre south to Kaifeng. Nevertheless, the Mongols now controlled northern China up to the Yellow River. In the long war, Genghis Khan realised the shortcomings of the Mongol army, and that was the lack of artillery. So it was during this time, that he incorporated siege warfare into the Mongol arsenal by pressing Chinese siege engineers into his service during war with the Jin. Fall of the Khwarazmids By 1218 Genghis Khan was ready to resume his conquests, but by then he had lost interest in China and instead turned his attention towards the west. He sent a general named Chepe to conquer the Kara-Khitai Empire, as a stepping stone toward Khwarazmid Persia. The previous year, a band of Mongol merchants were murdered in a Khwarazmid city. Genghis sent an envoy to the Khwarazmid Shah to clear up the matter, who then put the Mongol envoy was put to death. Using the envoy's death as a pretext and with the Kara Khitai Empire under Mongol control, Genghis mounted what would be his largest military operation in 1219. Passing over extremely difficult mountainous terrain in the Himalayas, the Mongols met and defeated the Khwarazmid army, with the Shah narrowly escaping the scene. Further engagements ended with similarly devastating results for the Shah's army, but with the Shah escaping each time. To put and end to this, Genghis Khan assigned his general Subedei and Chepe with a force of 20,000 men to find and kill the Shah. Bukhara fell by 1220, and then the Khwarazmid capital, Samarkand, soon followed suit just after two weeks. The marauding Mongol troops would level any cities they came across and massacred the population, and so the Khwarazmid Empire was literally wiped from existence, and within half a year of his escape, the former Shah died of leprosy, exhausted and in rags. However, Subedei and Chepe would go further. The Mongol detachment would turn north, making raids around the Caspian Sea, annexing Kartvelia and Armenia as Mongol client-states. Once the Kwarazm campaign was completed, Genghis Khan decided wisely to return home to take care of the administrative tasks of his empire. The Xixia was again refusing to pay tribute, meriting a punitive expedition. However, shortly after the Xixia campaign, Genghis Khan passed away at the age of 60 while on a hunting expedition in 1227. He had left for his sons an empire three times the size of both the Roman and Macedonian empires combined, but his descendents would soon extend it even further. The Horde Spreads West Genghis Khan, was succeded by Ogedei as Khaghan, or "Khan of Khans". The territories conquered through Genghis Khan's leadership were divided into four regions for each of his sons, but were politically united and under the Khaghan, now living at the newly built city of Karakoram. Ogedei would go on to pacify the remaining resistance left over from remnants of the Khwarazmids, and would destroy Jin once and for all in 1234. With Jin now defeated, Ogedei sent spies into the Christian world in order to prepare for the conquest of all Europe. In 1236, Subedei and Genghis Khan's grandson Batu was sent with 150,000 men on a mission to subjugate Russia and Eastern Europe. Unlike the other powers that would attempt to invade Russia, the Mongols were equally adept as the Russian in fighting in the winter. So Subedei planned his attack on Russia at the height of winter of 1237. The Mongols first defeated the Bulgars around the Volga River, then turned on the Russian principalities. The next year, they attacked from the north in order to avoid being outflanked by the Russians and in quick succession eliminated the northern Russian principalities, leaving only the city-states of Pskov and Novgorod intact. The Kynaz, or Prince, of Novgorod wisely took this opportunity to make a pact with the Mongols. This new land the Mongols took was dubbed "Altan Ordu", or the Golden Horde ("horde" meaning a camp in Mongol), and would remain in the hands of Mongols until the battle of Kulikovo Pole. After the victory over Russia, Subedei divided his army into three parts to take on Hungary and Poland. Using the excuse that the Cuman refugees, who had fled into Hungary as a result of the Russian Campaign, were Mongol subjects, they declared war on the Hungarians, and after a string of defeats, reached the city of Pest. At Legnica, a force of 20,000 Teutonic knights faced off against the Mongols but were slaughtered to the last man. Meanwhile a flanking force of 20,000 men sent north stormed into Poland and sacked Krakow. The Mongols crossed the Danube by the end of the year but stopped to consolidate their gains before setting out to attack Austria. During the whole campaign, the European countries found themselves incapable of resolving their differences completely to take on a common enemy, the Austrians even used the Mongol invasion to seize part of Hungary. However, the murder of Ogedey in Karakoram sparked a power struggle, that resulted in the election of Guyuk Khan, limiting the Mongol conquests in Europe to Russia. Meanwhile, Mongol attention was then turned toward the Middle East, concentrating on the politically fractured Abbasid Caliphate, and eventually razed Baghdad and slaughtered all Muslims therein in 1258, before having their reign of terror cut short by the battle of Ain Jalut in the summer of 1260, supposedly the first time firearms were used by a Muslim power in battle. Kublai Khan and the Division of the Mongolian Empire Kublai Khan would succeed Mongke in 1259, however his ascension was contested by his brother and it would take five years before Kublai was able to settle the matter. Kublai's interest was in China. He would also resume the conquests begun by Mongke of the Song dynasty of southern China. Kublai, this time combined with a naval force eventually drove the fledgling Song emperor to present-day Hong Kong after the battle of Yamen. The Yuan dynasty was established in China, and Kublai moved his capital to Beijing. During this period, Kublai would also send an envoy to Japan to demand tribute, however he would be rebuffed. In response, he sent a force of 150 ships in 1274 but was beaten back by the Japanese when a typhoon swampedthe Mongol fleet while it was docked after the initial clash. Kublai would send a much larger force in 1281, with similar results. The Mongols also mounted expeditions to conquer southeast Asia, but these expeditions' outcomes were only marginally better than what had transpired in Japan. Despite these military defeats, the Mongol empire was at its zenith, with an empire that reach from the Pacific to the Danube river in Europe, and trade flourished throughout the Mongol Empire. It was during Kublai's reign that the famous merchant adventurer Marco Polo arrived to China, observing and documenting the wonders of China that would enthrall Europe for centuries and lead to the Age of Discovery. Kublai's reign was concentrated with matters in China, and his attention was never concerned with the unity of the Mongol Empire. His successors did not even bother to stake claim over the Khakhan title and chose to be Chinese emperors under the Yuan dynasty. After Kublai's death in 1294, the Mongol Empire broke up into independent Khanates: The Golden Horde in Russia, the IlKhanate in Persia, and the Chaghatai empire which stretched from Afghanistan to Tibet. The Golden Horde would continue to rule over Russia until 1480, lasting the longest of all the foreign Khanates. The Mongol regime would remaining in power in China until 1368, when a peasant, Zhu Yuanzhang, lead a rebellion against them to establish the Ming dynasty. The Il-Khanate would see some continued prosperity under the reign of Abu Said, but upon his death the Mongol Khanate collapsed until Tamerlane, who while being Muslim and only part Mongol tried to reunify the Mongol Empire. He had managed to conquer the remnants of the Ilkhanate along with the Chaghatai khanate, but he died in 1405 without fully realising his ultimate goal of reunification. After his death, China would eventually annex the Eastern parts of the Chaghatai khanate as well as Mongolia under the Qing dynasty in 1696. Category:Factions Category:Spoiler